Incoming Dota 2 update adds new character new features and DireTide!

The latest update for Valve’s Dota 2 is introducing two more characters; The Ember Spirit and the Earth Spirit. Now I know the title of the update is called “Three Spirits” but it’s a bit misleading as Storm Spirit who is also listed is already a playable character but he does receive a character update and doesn’t look as creepy as he did before so it’s all good. Those who are familiar with Dota will also notice that the Earth Spirit actually appeared in the original Dota mod. As far as strengths are concerned their coloring gives it away as they will focus on Intelligence (Storm Spirit), Agility (Ember Spirit) and Strength (Earth Spirit).

Earth Spirit Info:

Carved of sacred jade, a statue of general Kaolin was buried at the head of a stone army ten thousand strong’a force of soldiers, holy men and acrobats, entombed for millennia in the embrace of the soil. Within this jade flowed the spirit of the Earth itself’an elemental force at one with the planet, gathering its strength until it dug its way free. Now the great Kaolin Earth Spirit strides across the land, fighting his enemies, calling forth remnants of his buried army.

Boulder Smash – Earth Spirit smashes the target, sending them flying in the direction he is facing.

Magnetize – Deals damage over time to enemy heroes in a small area. Victims will trigger Magnetize again if they run into Stone Remnants.

Ember Spirit Info:

Within the Fortress of Flares rests a topaz cauldron filled with ash, a pyre for the warrior-poet Xin, who trained his acolytes in the Bonds of the Guardian Flame. Touched by the teacher’s lasting legacy, the Burning Celestial, aspect of fire, cast himself to the fortress to reignite the remains. From these glowing embers emerged an image of Xin, wreathed in flame, his thoughtful countenance prepared to train and to teach, and to spread the fires of knowledge to all who seek guidance.

Searing Chains – Unleashes fiery bolas that anchor enemies in place and deal damage each second.

Sleight of Fists – Attacks all nearby enemies in a rush in the targeted area of effect, then returns to his start location.

Flame Guard – Surrounds himself with a shield of fire that damages enemies and protects him from magic damage.

Fire Remnant – Generates Fire Remnants that he can dash to and detonate, dealing damage to enemies nearby.

Activate Fire Remnant – Select the Fire Remnant at which to arrive.

In addition to adding new characters the update will also introduce several new features; A coaching system, a crafting system and a socketing system. Coaching is a welcome addition as it allows veterans or more experienced players to teach the newcomers the ropes and them ready to handle the harsh realitiy that exists online in Dota 2 matches. Crafting in my mind is a welcome addition as it allows you to transform combined ite;ms that you may have laying around into a newer and / higher rarity item. And finally socketing will let you customize you favorite items by adding sockets and gems to it which will give that item more bling such as better animations, colors and effects.

The Diretide will also come back via the patch and will last from 11/14 – 11/28, many will notice that it was absent earlier so I’m glad it’s back.

Bloodrage target sound now retriggers even if target is still silenced

Visuals

New support for remnant based effects. Visual updates to Storm/Ember/Earth Spirit remnants can be applied to all wearable items and will properly mimic when Rubick steals them

Modified Storm Spirit’s effects to bring them visually in line with other Spirits

Coaching

Anyone in a matchmaking party can specify that they’d like to coach the party instead of play. In lobbies, players can choose to coach a team instead of play or spectate. Coaches cannot be used in Team Matchmaking, or Tournament lobbies.

Increased maximum matchmaking party size to 6, to allow a coach to teach an entire team of students (but you can’t Find Match if you have 6 players with no coach)

Coaches are able to use in-player perspective views and broadcaster tools like line drawing to teach their students. They are able to ping on the ground, the minimap, and anywhere in the HUD itself.

Coaches are considered to be on the same team as their students, so they cannot see anything in the game that their students can’t see.

Coaches and students have private voice and text communication channels.

Coaches can hit their ‘Hero Select’ key to cycle through their students.

Coaches see spectator-style item purchase popups for their students.

In-perspective player view now shows the correct state of more HUD elements (Shop Quickbuy, KDA/Last Hits/Denies, Buyback). These improvements apply the the in-perspective view in live games and replays, as well as coaches.

Economy

Steam Community Market

This update may greatly disrupt market prices. In order to prevent items being purchased at pre-update prices for arbitrage, we are removing all item listings and returning them to their owners. While this removal process is taking place, new items will not be able to be listed on the Steam Community Market.

You can now list an item on the market from the armory (right click: sell on the market).

Armory item tooltips now contain the current lowest trading price for an item of the same class as the one highlighted. (Class is a somewhat flexible concept at the moment, so unusual courier prices will be less accurate than a specific wearable piece of equipment.)

Crafting

Crafting recipes now have a chance of dropping as a bonus item. These drops do not take up your normal drops, but are in addition to them.

Polymorph Recipes

These recipes take a variable number of any input of the same rarity and output a random other item of the same rarity. Example: 2 of Any Rare => 1 Random Different Rare

Augment Recipes

These recipes take a combination of inputs of the same rarity and output a random other item of the next best rarity. Example: 1 of Any Common & 1 Wavecrester => 1 Random Uncommon

Ancient Scroll Case

A new type of Treasure Chest called the “Ancient Scroll Case” has been added. These cases drop multiple recipes when they are opened.

The Ancient Scroll Case has a chance to drop an Exceptional Recipe. These make items that were previously only available as Genuine quality promotional items. The recipe creates a non-genuine version of the item.

Gems & Sockets

Items can now have up to 5 sockets.

A socket can receive a gem. Each socket can only contain one gem.

Some sockets require specific types of gems.

When a gem is added to a socket that already contains a gem, the previous gem is destroyed.

New Socketing Tools:

Artificer’s Chisel: Adds a socket to an item.

Artificer’s Hammer: Extracts the gems from an item.

Gem Types:

Kinetic Gems

Adds a new animation to the hero using the item.

Inscribed Gems

Adds stat tracking ability to the item similar to the old strange system.

The item they are added to changes to the “Inscribed” quality.

Ethereal Gems

Adds a particle effect to the item.

All unusual effects can now be colorized.

Prismatic Gems

Colorizes the particle effect on the effect gem.

Ascendant Gems

The Ascendant Orb, Gem of Taegeuk, and Bloodstones are now Ascendant Gems.

The item they are added to changes to the “Ascendant” quality. (in addition to tracking victories or gifts given as they did before).

Autograph Runes

Autographs are now Autograph Runes.

Allows you to tag an item with a pro player’s autograph.

Since an item can have 5 sockets, you can now get a whole team to autograph an item.

Styles that previously required ‘games viewed’ now require a gem with the same number of games viewed (for the correct league / player / team / etc).

Ethereal & Prismatic gems are used together on unusual items (couriers).

More types of gems will be coming in the future.

Unusual items do not change quality when gems are added. Non-unusual items will change in the order gems are added.

Item Quality Keywords

The item quality keyword “Vintage” has been changed to “Elder”.

The item quality keyword “Tournament” has been changed to “Heroic”.

The item quality keyword “Haunted” has been changed to “Cursed”.

The item quality keyword “Strange” has been changed to “Inscribed”.

Strange Items

Strange modifiers on items have been converted into stat tracking Inscribed Gems.

The stats on items are no longer wiped when an item is traded.

Strange modifiers that haven’t been applied have been turned into ‘gem packs’ that grant a living stat tracking gem and a Artificer’s Chisel to create a socket on an item.

Previously strange quality items are now have the inscribed quality.

Unusual Paint & Colors

Unusual paint items have been changed into Gem Packs that will grant a gem of the same color of the old paint item when used.

All couriers that were painted in the past will now have color gems already installed of the appropriate color.

All legacy courier colors (very old drop colors, bugged colors, etc) have been preserved as color gems. If you want, you can smash the courier to recover the legacy color gem and use it on some other courier or effect combination.

All unusual paint items on the Steam Community Market have been delisted. You can relist the Color Gem Packs.

All non-legacy colors (colors that drop normally from Treasure Chests) now have specific names (i.e.: “Verdant Green”). Legacy colors will have the name “Legacy (R G B)”. (Most Legacy Colors are completely unique, but there are a few where more than one of that color exist.)

New colors will appear on Treasure Chest unusuals from time to time moving forward. While we will avoid selecting legacy colors we cannot completely guarantee that new colors will not sometimes be similar. The 800 or so unique legacy colors in existence cover a large amount of color space.

About The Author

Keith Mitchell is the Founder and Editor in Chief of The Outerhaven. A grizzled IT professional during the day, but a passionate lover of video games after his 9-5 grid. Loves playing the Dark Souls series and has been gaming since he was 6 years old. You can find him on Twitter as @Shadowhaxor or you can email her at keith.mitchell@theouterhaven.net.